This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2020 and 2021. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data status: the state of the data received from the shelter, highlighting missing pieces and potential areas for improvement.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. RTH Rate is calculated as the portion of returned animals that came in as strays out of stray animals. Normally, we also exclude neonate cats, but age group was not easily available in the data supplied.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2020 124 4 0.03
Cat 2021 331 10 0.03
Dog 2020 221 85 0.38
Dog 2021 1214 432 0.36

Field RTH Rate

This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field (using subtype ‘Stray ACO Pick-Up’). These are then split by RTH outcome subtype values with Offsite/Harbor RTO as one category and ‘Shelter RTO’ as all other values.

Data note: does your shelter do return to owner in the field? If so, how is it documented?

Species Year Field_Strays RTH_Subtype Field_RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2020 8 Shelter RTH 1 0.12
Cat 2021 48 Shelter RTH 2 0.04
Dog 2020 57 Offsite/Harbor RTH 1 0.02
Dog 2020 57 Shelter RTH 24 0.42
Dog 2021 386 Offsite/Harbor RTH 10 0.03
Dog 2021 386 Shelter RTH 132 0.34

Shelter RTH Rate by Species

Excluding animals coming in from the field, using subtypes ‘Public Drop Off’ and ‘Stray With Finder’. The return rate is fairly similar to that of animals who came from the field.

Species Year OTC_Strays Shelter_RTH RTH_Rate
Cat 2020 62 2 0.03
Cat 2021 145 4 0.03
Dog 2020 124 41 0.33
Dog 2021 604 184 0.30

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

Overall RTH

Fairly stable, with a small dip around the beginning of 2021.

Field RTH (Dogs)

This is the same figure, but only counting field strays, and showing only dogs due to cats’ low numbers. The different lines split the rate of return by Field RTH or in-shelter RTH. It seems like the dip in the overall RTH rate comes from this group.

Shelter RTH

This figure only counts strays who did not come from the field, and the dip is not as apparent.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Money Saved by RTH

This could be another useful metrics to reflect the benefits of RTH over other outcome types. It takes into account three components:

  1. The number of stray intakes with RTH outcome.
  2. The daily cost of care.
  3. The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays. This is shown in the table below – roughly 29 days for dogs and 40 for cats.

As an example, there were 479 stray dos who got RTH in 2021. Assuming 30$ cost of daily care per dog, and given the length-of-stay differences, We can estimate that return-to-homes for dogs saved CAC \(432*30*29=\$375,840\) in 2021 (up to June).

Of course, that is a pretty basic calculation. This can be made more nuanced by differentiating field/shelter returns and incorporating the costs associated with them, if relevant.

Data Note: the length of stay seems higher than average – does this surpise you? In case the averages were high because of a few outliers we looked at the median, but it too is higher than usual.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay Median_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 290 40.81 25
Cat RTO 14 1.07 1
Dog Other Outcomes 719 30.66 20
Dog RTO 517 1.49 1

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found Location

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by Census tracts to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

The data in this section includes stray dogs for which found addresses were present and workable, meaning they had a street number or an intersection (as opposed to just a street name). Animals with the shelter’s address (and anything on its street) were excluded as well. After this filtering, the data below (number of strays, rate of RTH, RTH gap) is shown for 1442 strays of which 362 were RTH, out of a total of 1914 strays in the data we received (from November 2020).

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists.

Census Data

This map shows different demogrpahic information for Hamilton County.

Data Status

  1. Found location was missing or non-usuable (something like ‘see note’ or the shelter’s address) for about 600 animals. If ZIP codes are tracked more regularly, we could use them as well (they are not in the data we got so far).
  2. Intake subtype for strays has multiple valuesassigned to less than 20 animals, which could be removed to simplify or thought through again. It seems like a lot of information is condensed into it, e.g. an indication of TNR/CCP and a specificity of ‘TNR with Cat Has Microchip’.
  3. We were not sure how to count the Law Enforcement category under stray, which we would usually classify as ‘seizure/confiscate’ as opposed to stray. We could talk about it and analyze it similarly to the ACO and OTC data analyzed above.

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Exact distances traveled by lost dogs from home, if home address was collected for successful RTH.
  2. Prevalence of microchips across town (for example, are there areas from which more animals come in without chips?) and the RTH rates for animals found with/without chips, if a scan result upon intake (yes/no microchip) is documented.
  3. Reclaim fees and their waiving (could be a yes/no to track fee waiving).
  4. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by public (if this data is accessible to the shelter).

Thanks for reading through, and we’re looking forward to talking through it and thinking about more ways to make this data useful for you.